


Too Early For This

by beekeepercain



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Coming Out, Gen, MTF Sam, Sibling Love, Trans Sam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-29
Updated: 2017-03-29
Packaged: 2018-10-12 18:03:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10496544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beekeepercain/pseuds/beekeepercain
Summary: Dean's barely out of bed, and Sam needs to talk. Right now.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Trans Day of Visibility prompt. :>

* * *

 

Summer’s finally come. It’s the first really hot day so far, and Dean’s sweaty when he climbs up from the bed. Sam’s already up, sitting by the motel room’s table with a cup of coffee in hand. He seems tense, and it’s really the first thing Dean notices as he pulls on his t-shirt against the wishes of his soaked body.

“What crawled up your ass?” he greets his brother on the way to the coffeemaker.

Sam grants him a wary look and sips his coffee.  
“Dean, we need to talk.”

“Right now? I mean, sheesh, I just got up and all.”

“I’m sorry. I’ve just been going through this in my head a million times and I need to get it out before it kills me.”

“Huh. Alright, let me get my coffee and I’ll be right with you.”

Dean pours himself a cup, but the day’s heat isn’t really getting to him anymore. Suddenly, he feels cold instead.

Really cold.

“Talk,” he says when he sits down.

Sam tucks back the stray hair hanging over his face and looks down.

“This is fucked up,” he mutters and Dean can see him picking at his nails - he never does that, or at least, he’s never done it before.

He doesn’t know what to say - or expect - so he says and does nothing at all, simply sits there waiting for Sam to find the words. Then, finally, Sam lifts his gaze and looks him directly in the eye.

“Alright, there’s no way to put this so that it doesn’t sound stupid, so I’ll just come out with it. Dean, I think I’m a girl. I’m… pretty sure I’m a girl.”

“Uh,” Dean lets out and puts down his coffee, brows lifting, “Are you - feeling okay? I mean, did - man - what?”

Sam looks down again, and Dean can’t help but laugh nervously.

“Dude, alright, but - aren’t you a bit too old to be a girl? I mean, you’re, what, 34 -”

“Fine. A woman. Whatever. That’s - not the point.”

Dean leans back in his chair. His fingers slip over the smooth ceramic of his coffee mug and he feels like he’s missing something.

“I’m… not sure I follow. Your junk’s still there, right?”

Sam grimaces.  
“I’m not talking about - God, Dean - no.”

They’re quiet for a moment and Dean really, really doesn’t have a clue what’s going on. He notices his hand trembling regardless when he raises his mug from the table again and tries to drink.

“Okay, can we do this again, Sam?” he asks then, his voice uncertain, “I don’t… I think I’m missing the context.”

“It just… I’m trying, but the word seems - it seems really ugly, like it doesn’t describe… and I can’t… get it out.”

“It’s okay. It’s just the two of us, alright? So whatever it is, it can’t be worse than ‘moist’.”

Dean’s satisfied when Sam lets out a laugh. Some of the tension in his shoulders vanishes and he drinks his coffee, too, although he’s still very nervous and his movements seem stiff. He looks out the window next, and Dean can see the shade of the oak tree outside reflecting in his eyes.

“I think I’m - a transgender woman,” Sam tells the tree, then lowers his gaze quickly.

Dean blinks. He lets out a funny sound, a gasp of some sort, and his cup hits the table a little too hard when he returns it there. He doesn’t know what to say - exclamations of all sorts rush through his mind, but none of them feel right.

 _“Seriously?”_  or _“You’re joking, right?”_ or even _“Huh.”_

They don’t seem like appropriate reactions to the situation, but Sam’s waiting.

“Huh,” he finally picks one, “You - uh - you’ve thought about this a lot, huh, Sammy?”

Sam nods stiffly.  
“It’s… the only thing that’s been on my mind for a really long while now. Why I’ve been so absent and irritable. I know, I’ve been a huge bitch, and I’m sorry, but I just - I don’t have the patience. Not when I’m feeling like this. All I want - really, all I want is just to be _sure_ , but there’s no such thing - and I don’t… I don’t know where to go from here, what else to do than tell you. So I had to. I’m… Dean, I’m…”

“Sorry?”

Sam nods again.

“Dude - uh - I mean, you don’t - this isn’t the sort of a thing you need to be _sorry_  about. Give me - just give me a moment here, alright?” Dean pleads.

His hands are visibly shaking now, so he moves them between his thighs and squeezes them in the hopes of returning some sensation or warmth into them.

“Why… do you think that? I mean, you’ve always been… well, not exactly a macho guy or anything, I mean, you’re pretty - _you_  - and I make fun of you and everything, but you know that it doesn’t - doesn’t have to mean you’re not a dude, right? Like, you can like smoothies and books and have long hair without being, you know, a girl.”

Sam grimaces.  
“It’s not - about that. It’s that - I mean, I guess that’s some of it, because that’s who I am, and you know that. Right? But it’s more than that and it’s not about the things I like or do or that I couldn’t like or do them as a dude. It’s just that - I don’t feel like one. Like, I’m _not_  a guy, I don’t know how to explain it to you, I just… don’t feel like I fit. Like I fit in my own skin. I’ve tried for a really long time to… just ignore it, but it’s always been there. I always just… felt like I didn’t belong.”

“And you… you, uh, you think you’d fit better… as a girl?”

Another nod - this one’s smaller, more timid. Finally, Sam looks at Dean again.  
“After we moved in the bunker,” he starts, and his voice is audibly nervous now, “I’ve… let myself experiment a little. Do things that… make me feel more alright with who I am and… things that make me feel comfortable and right. I won’t - go into detail because it’s none of your business, really, but I feel so much better when I can just let go of the role I’m playing and be myself. Things like… things that don’t mean that I’m a girl, per se, but which make me feel more like I am one, like wearing certain clothes or - or doing things to my hair, just small things like that. It’s made such a big difference and the truth is that I don’t - want to live this way anymore, like I’m hiding who I really am. I don’t know what I want to do or where I want to go from here but I want to be me and I want to stop hiding. Do you - do you get any of this?”

Dean swallows.  
“I - I don’t know, Sammy, if I’m really honest with you, because - I mean, I’ve…”

He blushes, trying hard to ignore that it’s happening.

“I’ve experimented a little, I guess you could say?” he confesses, “And like you said, that’s none of your business, but it was - I mean, I got something of a thrill out of it.”

The blush deepens.

“Like, um. I liked doing it, but it doesn’t make me a girl. You know?”

Sam’s jaw tenses for a moment before he sighs.  
“It’s not like that,” he says then, “It’s not a thrill, and it’s… definitely not sexual. I just feel more happy and confident like that. I… like myself better that way. And at first I was thinking that maybe it’s just trying to put distance between myself and my life or something, but it’s not escapism either. I just really, really feel good like that and I want to feel good that way all the time and not just whenever you’re not home or I’m locked up in my own bedroom.”

“So it’s - like - you want to _live_  like that, and not just…”

“I don’t want to just do it every now and then, I want to live it. Yeah.”

“You want to be a girl.”

“It’s more like - I already am, and I just want to stop pretending, because it’s exhausting and I’m tired and I don’t want to hate myself anymore.”

There’s a silence, and Sam looks like he’s slipped something that he shouldn’t have said; Dean feels a sting inside his chest at the words and realises that while he’s known it for a long while, this is the first time Sam has really confessed it to him.

“I don’t want you to hate yourself either,” Dean hears himself say, “Because you’re my little br-… I mean, little whatever, and I - I just - I want things to be good for you too, right? But this just… seems really drastic, or, I don’t know, Sam, are you sure?”

Sam shrugs.  
“As I said, I don’t think there’s such a thing as sure. The only thing I do know for _sure_  is that I can’t keep living the way I’ve done before. It just - going back and forgetting about this - it isn’t an option anymore. And I don’t know, if I can’t go back, I have to go somewhere, right?”

A thought emerges in Dean’s head - a thought that, he admits to himself, is really selfish and not what he wants to be thinking, but a thought that reassures him regardless. He braves himself before speaking it out, just in case he’s wrong.  
“So… you’re saying… you’d like to try it out? Being a girl?”

Sam nods.

“Like, just, adding a few things here and there to figure out if you want to keep them, or - or something like that?”

“Yeah. I mean, I won’t stay the same, regardless. They’re not just things you can ignore. But - I’m not talking about anything… big. I just want to be more comfortable.”

Dean feels himself relax.  
“So… I won’t find you tomorrow in a dress and high heels and ten inches of powder on your face?”

Sam chuckles and shakes his head.  
“No. Nothing like that.”

“Alright,” Dean says in an unmistakably relieved voice, “Alright, I - think that’s - yeah. I don’t think that’s a bad idea. I mean, I’m gonna need some time to adjust, but -”

“I need time, too. Dean, I’m really not sure. I just - I want to try what works. I’m not changing overnight.”

Dean nods.  
“Okay. So we’re not talking full-on surgery or anything?”

“No. Not today and not tomorrow and not for a long while or ever. I don’t know yet. I haven’t - I mean, I haven’t even _thought_  about surgery, so it’s not - not something either of us needs to worry about right now. But I’ve…”

“Yeah?”

“I’ve thought about hormones. Maybe. I don’t know yet. But maybe. I - like the thought. It makes me feel better that it’s an option for me. Maybe it won’t do much, but - at least it’s an option. For later. I don’t know.”

Dean feels like he’s not really breathing right, but he tries to smile despite it. Then he nods and pulls up his mug again; he drinks it without tasting it, and his head feels light and weird.

_Too much information before my first cup of coffee, man._

He lowers the mug back onto the table and looks at his brother for a while.

“Do you…” he starts then, hesitating a little before carrying on, “Do you - want me to do something for you? Change your pronouns, something?”

Sam blushes. He looks down and hesitates, too, with his hair falling back over his face. He brushes it back and turns to examine the oak again.

“If you - can do that, that’d be… I mean, it would… mean the world to me, Dean. Really. But I don’t expect that you get them right the first time or anything, and I don’t mind if you slip, or, you know. It’s good. I’m… thanks. I didn’t expect you’d ask.”

“Sure. And, uh… you’re not gonna change your name or anything, are you?”

Sam glances at him and smiles a little, shaking his head.  
“Sam’s good.”

“Right. It can be a girl name, too, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Alright. I can - I mean, I can do that, at least in private, I mean, other people would probably -”

“Yeah, I know. I know. I’m not saying we do this outside yet or anything. Just while we’re at home and - in private. I don’t really want to mix other people into this yet either. I just want to feel comfortable when I have the chance. That’s all.”

Dean nods.  
“Yeah. Alright. That’s not too bad. It’ll take me some time, but - if it makes you happy.”

He manages to catch Sam’s eye and sees the wide smile he - she - tries to hide so hard.

She. Yeah, somehow, that doesn’t seem so ill-fitting on the guy. Girl.

Dean groans.  
“Alright, you’ve got to cut me some slack, I’m already messing up.”

Sam laughs.  
“Yeah, no, you’ve got some 34 years to unlearn, I’ll cut you some slack. I’m just - thanks, Dean.”

“No problem, kid sister.”


End file.
